Foreclosure find yields cozy treasure for father, daughter

Most people, unless headed to a specific address, will simply drive past the two-story row houses that line the curb along Fleet Street in East Baltimore. Few are wider than 15 feet; their only mark of individuality is usually found in the variety of front doors. Many of these houses, dating to 1910, are examples of exterior brick restoration, while others still bask in the Formstone glory of 1940's exterior home improvement.

Alex Dyadyura, a computer programmer with Johns Hopkins Community Physicians, purchased one of these houses less than a year ago. Secure in his position after almost three years of service, the time was ripe for moving from his rented house in Patterson Park.

"I got used to this neighborhood and started looking around," said the Ukrainian-born Dyadyura in a soft voice. "And this one came along."

He purchased the foreclosure property for $149,000 and moved into a house already beautifully renovated by the previous owners. It still needed about $10,000 in updates, so Dyadyura and his 19-year-old daughter, Krystyana, who moved from Canada to live with him, painted every interior room, tiled the kitchen, replaced the roof and built a concrete parking pad in the postage stamp-sized backyard.

From the street, the house looks like those flanking it – still dressed in a coat of Formstone, with door and windows trimmed in white. Beyond the front door, the interior measures 13.6-feet wide by 46-feet deep. A living room in the front of the house faces south, while the kitchen, at the rear, faces north. A moderately sized hall separates the two with a staircase to the second level on one side and a full bathroom on the other.

Blatantly contemporary in décor, an overwhelming coziness is achieved through a palate of warm wall colors that surround gleaming oak flooring. In the kitchen, walls are painted a soft shade of pumpkin and framed in a stencil of painted green confetti-like pieces, executed by Dyadyura's daughter, a graphic arts student. Cabinets of cherry wood hang above granite countertops and stainless appliances.

Across the room from the prep area, upholstered high-backed chairs in a geometric design cozy up to a round glass-topped table. A high-topped, dark-stained parsons table, with two bar stools tucked under it, rests in front of the wide kitchen window hung with taffeta like curtains over cream colored shears. Light-colored ceramic floor tile has been laid on a diagonal for interest.

"The living room is my favorite," Dyadyura said, noting that the décor was done by his daughter and Baltimore designer Steve Appel as a surprise.

Painted a warm shade of French vanilla, a contemporary tuxedo-style sofa of olive-colored velour sits against a wall under a stunning, frameless self portrait of his daughter. A large round mirror is hung on the opposite wall, providing a reflection of the neat, minimalistic décor. In one corner, adjacent to a 46-inch wide-screen TV, a barreled armchair is placed at an angle to a three shelved parson's table painted white.

"I actually never moved anything after they put together," he said, adding, "I'm not artistic, I'm functional."

Functionality dictates on the second level where two bedrooms, one in the front, the other in the back, are separated by a hall and center room that his daughter uses as her studio. "This was intended to be my bathroom," says Dyadyura fondly.

The master bedroom contains a black lacquered wood bedroom suite and computer desk. Furnishings, such as a neutral colored brocade bed quilt and flowing shear curtains on the windows, soften the austere look.

Krystyna's bedroom suite at the back end of the second level is a work in progress. Only her bathroom, with walls painted a candy apple green, suggests an artistic decor in the works.

Walking down the stairs to the first level, Dyadyura notes that he carpeted the steps and intends to stain the oak railing. When asked if he plans to remain in his contemporary, compact home, he notes, "I love the location. Here you can walk anywhere, to shopping, restaurants and to park."

Saudi Ceramic profit leaps 17% for third quarter

Saudi Ceramic Company said net profit rose 17% against the same period last year, though fell by the same margin against the second quarter.

The country’s biggest supplier of tiles, porcelain and bathroom fixtures made SAR 54.2m ($14.45m) after tax between July and September, up 17.3% against the SAR 46.2m ($12.31m) posted last year. Gross and operating profits rose 19% and 15% respectively as production efficiency improved at its Riyadh facilities. The company has also opened new production lines in this time and expanded its international network of sales.

“These positive results and increases of the third quarter of 2011 compared with the same period of the last year reflect the company’s ability in sales and production as well since the new factories started the production.”

Net profit for the first three quarters of 2011 rose 10% against last year – SAR 179.5m ($147.856m) from SAR 162.5m ($43.32m) – with gross and operating profits rising 16% and 14% respectively.

Saudi Ceramic Company has benefitted from the higher levels of construction activity in Saudi Arabia, including the hotel projects in the country’s major cities and the thousands of homes under construction across the country.

This year the company has expanded its operations. In January the company test-ran a new pipe-making facility that it is running in conjunction with a subsidiary, Ceramic Pipe Company. In September, it completed the construction of its fourth tile factory, boosting the total capcity to 52m2 and adding an estimated SAR 150m ($40m) to revenue.

Earlier this month, the company said it is planning a second factory that will produce bathroom fixtures, investing SAR 120m ($32m) in the first phase out of the company’s own cash flow from the Saudi Industrial Development Fund and commercial banks. The new factory is estimated to contribute SAR 75m to revenues when at full capacity.

Home repair: Best flooring for a sunroom

The 16½-by-14-foot sunroom at the west end of my house is floored with stick-on tiles over plywood, probably lauan, placed over thick planks that were the original flooring. The stick-on tiles are peeling up and breaking. I’ve wondered if the new flooring was put down because the previous owner thought the gaps between the boards were too big. Sun pours in through the windows much of the day on two sides (a maple shades the third windowed side), so I think heat is the problem.

The sunroom isn’t heated in winter. Last year, we put fiberglass insulation under the floor and nailed black building board under that. The porch siding is now Hardie fiber-cement board from the ground up to the windows. There is insulation between the studs, and the inside walls are covered with bead-board-effect wood sheets. All gaps were sealed (no cluster flies or other bugs this year). The ceiling is aluminum strips that look like boards, with no insulation above. The windows slide open to expose screens, and there’s a ceiling fan.

I’d like to remove the ceiling and just paint the support structure and underside of the roof to decrease the summer heat in the room and for the spacious effect. I don’t use the room much in the winter, and I doubt this would affect the rest of the house enough to raise heating bills noticeably.

The problem is, what about flooring? My contractor wants to take up the tile and paint the plywood, which he thinks is nailed down, but I doubt it will wear well, and I don’t think it would look particularly nice.

I’d prefer to take up the plywood, grout between the boards if necessary, and use porch paint on them. Laminate flooring that mimics wood might not survive the heat and sun of summer. I don’t want carpet, because after seeing the dirty throw rugs, I’d think of it as a grime deposit. A flooring rep told me I’d have to use expensive ceramic or porcelain tile because the room’s unheated in winter and sun-beaten in the summer.

Aside from the expense, the depth of tile, or another layer of real wood planks, would interfere with opening the door to the outside. But is sheet vinyl an option? What about linoleum tile, or bamboo flooring? Or are there other options that won’t break the bank? This room is also the main entry to the house, so it does get foot traffic, including a large dog.

I like seeing the view from the sunroom through the window wall of the room to which it’s attached, so putting blinds on the large expanse of windows in the sunroom isn’t an option, plus opening and closing them daily would be a chore.

A: I am not clear about something. Is the roof of the sunroom all glass? If it is, why the aluminum strips? And if it is glass, I am not sure that just painting it is going to reduce the heat in the summer. An effective shield is one of the 3M films. A shade shop may also suggest a gray shade that would lessen the heat gain but that you could see through.

I agree with you that the lauan plywood would not be a great surface for heavy traffic. Once the lauan plywood is removed, you may be surprised to find that the original boards are OK, but if there are spaces between them, the way to tackle those will vary with the size of the cracks.

If you remove the lauan plywood, which is probably ¼- inch thick, will that give you enough room for an engineered or bamboo floor? I would think that either of those would stand up to the stresses of high heat and sun exposure. Ceramic or quarry tiles would be a great option, and they are ¼-inch thick, whereas wood flooring is 5/8 inch or more.

Quicksilver accelerates Horn River development

In yet another indication the Horn River shale gas field is almost ready for prime time, Houston-based Quicksilver Resources said Friday it has signed transportation deals that will allow it to scale up production from northeast British Columbia.

The Fort Worth-based unconventional gas producers, which was a pioneer in shale plays such as the Barnett field in Texas, said it has created an operating subsidiary to build the gathering pipelines needed to move the gas onto larger pipeline networks feeding Canada and the United States.

“We have the pieces in place to ensure that our vast resource capture will move out of the Horn River Basin to the west through the Spectra system and to the south through the Trans Canadian pipeline system,” Quicksilver chairman Toby Darden said in a statement. “We believe that creating this midstream entity will provide our lowest cost solution for gathering, treating and transporting our commodity to multiple sales points.”

The first part of the puzzle is a 32-kilometre gathering line, which will tie-in to the Spectra Westcoast system to the lower mainland and Pacific Northwest, expected to be operational in May.

On April 11, Quicksilver signed a deal with TransCanada Corp. to build a 100-kilometre tie-in into the Alberta Nova network which can alternatively access the TCPL main line to Eastern Canada and the larger North American grid.

In an interview, Quicksilver vice-president Rick Buterbaugh said current production of about 20 million cubic feet per day is constrained by limited access to third-party pipelines. The tie-ins will allow ensure adequate capacity to ramp up production to 2014 and beyond, he added. “This gives us multiple outlets for our gas,” he said. “We’re always looking for a variety of markets to move gas to, it’s the key to almost any of these developments.”

Horn River has been touted as one of the largest natural gas discoveries in North America, but its remote location near the Yukon border make it relatively expensive compared to other big shale plays in Pennsylvania and Texas that are closer to consuming markets.

The proliferation of low-cost shale production has pushed gas prices to the lowest levels in a decade, which put even more pressure on the economic viability of remote fields like Horn River.

Natural gas jumped seven cents in New York on Friday, to $4.21 US per million British thermal units, but Lower 48 storage levels remain well above the five-year averages.

The U.S. government issued a report Thursday that showed a larger-than-expected stock build of 28 billion cubic feet, which Barclay’s Capital analyst Tom Driscoll called “bearish” in a research report.

“We believe gas price risk remains to the downside as fundamentally the market remains oversupplied and U.S. production continues to grow.

Where other Horn River players like Encana and Apache Corp. have looked at liquefied natural gas exports off the West Coast as an alternative to traditional markets, Buterbaugh said low-cost pipeline transport remains a cornerstone of Quicksilver’s strategy.

The company will continue to pursue Horn River because it has the potential to quadruple the company’s proved reserves to about 12 trillion cubic feet. Despite low prices, Buterbaugh said he believes Horn River can be viable.

“Locking in low-cost transportation is all part of the equation of making Horn River competitive with the other plays,” he said.